Nisha Patel, City of Edmonton Poet Laureate & Canadian Individual Slam Champion - It Takes a C-Tribe Village Podcast

It Takes A C-Tribe Village

Preface: The origins of the phrase is a mystery. It takes a village to raise a child is a proverb that spirited from African or Native American cultures. The phrase translates into saying that it takes an entire community of different people interacting with children in order for children to experience and grow in a safe environment.

The thought leaders, game-changers, and innovators that we look up to are often impacted by the same thing: they’ve been exposed to people, environments, and interactions that have helped shape and define who they are today.The It Takes a C-Tribe Village Podcast aims to identify, dissect, and celebrate the unsung heroes, things, and experiences that have impacted the greatest minds of our generation and how these individuals are paying it forward for those to come.

Guest: Nisha Patel (@anothernisha), City of Edmonton Poet Laureate & Canadian Individual Slam Champion
Interviewer: Sahr Saffa, Chairperson, C-Tribe, and VP of Canadian Operations, AutonomIQ

Show Notes: "Eventually I reached a point where I was like, “you know what, I want to see what happens if I pursue this full time.” I’m not sure what will happen and I don’t know if I can pursue this full time, but you hear about people in their retirement years, or you hear from Millennials, “oh, I want to write a book one day”, or “I want to travel the world when I retire”, or “I want to do this when I retire.” I don’t want to live a life waiting for retirement, I want to try things now. Either I can spend this money when I’m 67 (or whenever the retirement age is) or I can use all of my savings to see what it takes to be a full time artist and do what I want for a year. My year was up a few months ago, but I think I’m doing pretty well right now to buy myself a little bit of time as an artist.

Bio: Nisha (@anothernisha) is an Indo-Canadian poet, artist, and public speaker in Edmonton, Alberta. She is the current Poet Laureate for the City of Edmonton. She is also the 2019 Canadian Individual Slam Champion, the 2019 Edmonton Slam Champion, and the Executive Director of the Edmonton Poetry Festival.

She is the author of "Limited Success" and co-author of "Water".
She is the 2016 Edmonton Indie Slam Champion and a four-time member of the Edmonton Slam Team. She is a finalist of the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word. She is the former Artist-in-Residence at The Nook Cafe and The Sewing Machine Factory.

Her work has also been published in The Glass Buffalo Vol. 2 No. 3 & The City Series: Number Four - Edmonton, as well as The Polyglot Issue 3: Curating our Canons.

Nisha holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Alberta School of Business with a major in Business Economics and Law, a minor in Political Science, and a Certificate in Leadership.

Overall, Nisha, is one of those people that I wish I spent more time getting to know during the earlier parts of our working relationship as members of the Global Shapers community. Her story is so beautiful for many reasons, but the one that stands out the most to me is that she has allowed a very dark moment in her life—where their literally was no way out— to propel her into being the most celebrated artist her in the city and amongst the best in Canada. She’s a hidden talent here in Edmonton and has basically taken over a world I had no idea about: the world of written poetry and artistry. What’s interesting though, is that throughout this podcast, I uncover that she thinks about the same things while building her artistic business that I would think about while building a tech business.